


Reaching a Silent Close

by thatonegreenpencil



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Cancer, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, terminal illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-01
Updated: 2013-12-01
Packaged: 2018-01-03 02:41:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1064781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatonegreenpencil/pseuds/thatonegreenpencil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Comfort is just another form of healing, and Jean is determined to keep him happy till the end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reaching a Silent Close

**Author's Note:**

> All aboard the angst train, choo choo
> 
> Prompt from tumblr user vtown2000

Their lips are an inch apart when a cough seizes Eren in its unforgiving grip, and a spray of blood splashes across Jean’s white t-shirt. The coughing won’t stop long enough for him to be horrified. Fear makes his skin go cold, and he almost shoves Eren into the car in his hurry. He’s sure that he breaks at least six traffic laws on their way to the hospital, but all he sees red. He’s pretty sure his mouth is moving, probably hurling all kinds of swear words at Eren, but all he can hear is the horrid coughing behind him, sharper than any spike in the world and all aimed towards him. It hurts when they pierce his ears, but he knows he’s not hurting as much as Eren probably does.

Jean will never know it, but what he actually says (screams) is one word, over and over again.

_Why didn’t you tell me why didn’t you tell me why why why why why_

The tires skid on the pavement but he doesn’t care, doesn’t even bother to put the car in park, too caught up with the scratchy cough that he’s sure is getting weaker. Jean drags a protesting Eren into the hospital doors (“It’s just a bit of blood, why are you getting so worked up”) where the nurse at the front desk takes one look at them and glides over. Together, he and the nurse, they haul Eren into the diagnosis room where he goes still on the paper-covered bed.

Jean bites back a snappy insult when he’s told to wait outside and spends what seems like hours crushing the arm of a plush blue bench and running down a list of all the swear words he knows, because being angry is so much easier than preparing himself for the worst.

He uses none of the words on his imaginary list when the doctor calls him over. The wrinkles on the old man’s face are sunken but hard, as if he’s done this many times over and over again.

It’s terminal lung cancer.

* * *

Eren doesn’t look at him when he slides into the room, not even making a rude remark about the batch of pure-white lilies in his hand as he would’ve done a couple days ago. It’s like Jean’s not even there.

“Hey,” Jean whispers. The corner of Eren’s mouth goes up, and Jean’s hoping that he’s going to open his mouth, say how sappy he is-

but nothing.

He sets the flowers gently beside Eren’s bedside table, deciding that the teen will look at them when he wants to. All the questions he has been preparing flies out the window. Eren looks too sad for confrontations. “Move over.”

Eren turns and stares as if Jean’s grown two heads.

“Well?”

He looks suspicious for a moment, but then shrugs to himself before shuffling over a few inches on the bed, leaving just enough room for Jean to crawl in next to him if they squeeze together hard enough.

“We’re in a hospital,” Eren says, but Jean’s happy to see that the brilliant green orbs no longer look like a dead fish’s.

He responds to the remark by gripping the other’s shoulders and gently brushing their lips together. Bursts of pleasure pop within him as they always do when they kiss, and the feeling’s heightened when Eren shifts, pressing their mouths in a warm embrace. Eren’s eyes are laughing when the break apart.

“You’ll catch my cancer, asshole.”

“You can’t catch cancer, dumbass.”

Eren sticks his tongue out at Jean and they erupt into a fit of laughter over their twisted sort of humor, but if being an idiot makes Eren feels better about the whole thing, he supposes he can’t really mind.

* * *

Jean visits every day because keeping Eren happy is his one goal in life at the moment. Even if he won’t admit it, his heart knows that it won’t be long until he won’t get to hear that laugh anymore. He likes to get a white lily every time he visits, adding onto the ever-growing mini-garden of the things beside Eren’s bed. The visits are more like insult battles and kissing sessions, him complaining about life, and then Eren, Eren complaining about life, and then Jean. Everything is almost normal.

The surgeries come.

Eren’s always drowsy after each one, but he still manages a sleepy smile when Jean’s there to hold his hand afterwards and run small fingers on every inch of him. Through his hair, on his face, dancing lightly on exposed, pale skin. When the headaches are bad, Jean rubs circles on the sides of Eren’s head, pressing lightly against his temples as the other falls into a light sleep, sometimes clutching Jean, sometimes not.

“I’m so tired, Jean,” he says one day, after Jean’s loses count of how many sessions of various kinds of therapies he’s had. Jean nods, and presses a kiss to the nest of chocolate-brown hair.

Eren’s fingers grip a bit tighter, nails digging into skin. “I wish I didn’t take up so much of your time.”

Jean’s finger pause. The thought of slapping Eren out of his apparent idiocy is appealing, but instead, he plants a deep kiss on the teen’s mouth. “Don’t get stupid ideas,” he says, snuggling his cheek into Eren’s hair.

Eren turns away with a sniff, but he catches a glimpse of something trailing down Eren’s cheek. He presses his body closer to the other’s and vows to hide his own sadness, too.

* * *

Months have passed, and even though the doctors don’t tell them directly, they both know that time is winding down to a close. Jean spends all free time at the hospital, and skips classes as often as he can. He’s usually the only one who can coax Eren into eating. The teen’s frame still retains the shape it always had, somehow managing to keep in good health with the little food he’s managing to keep down. Every morsel is a small victory in Jean’s eyes.

Jean has to find new and creative ways to keep Eren going spiritually, too, because giant teddy bears two times his size now only drag out a half-hearted smile for a fraction of a second. Eren starts to wince with the slightest touches at his middle, so all the contact they have are soft kisses and caresses on his face. He’s getting more and more mute, too, responding to jabs at his pride or caring questions with the simplest answers possible, always with his vision tilted towards the window, gazing hungrily at the blue sky.

It’s hard to keep the promise he made to himself, but Jean does it. His smiles are frayed at the edges, but he’s pretty sure Eren doesn’t notice.

Soon, he’s barely there. Eren’s almost always asleep, and when he isn’t, he struggles not to fall asleep. Wide emerald eyes are usually half-closed but pleading, begging Jean to not let sleep take him again. Jean tries to keep smiling and make jokes, but he’s talking to an unconscious shell or a broken soul, and his efforts are fruitless.

“I’m sorry.” It’s a phrase that comes out of Eren’s mouth daily. Jean’s hand trembles as it settles on the boy’s forehead.

He tilts his head. A reassurance is useless. “I love you,” he says instead, and that draws a smile from Eren’s lips. The first one in months.

Jean takes a mental picture, saving it where he’ll never forget it.

* * *

His voice is painfully hoarse when he responds.

“I love you too.”

* * *

He feels it about the same time the doctors do, the time when they only start letting family in. Jean stands in the blindingly-white hallway, arguing to the head nurse in a broken voice saying that he’s got to be with him-

Mikasa, Eren’s sister and only remainder of family, passes by and looks at him, something she’s never done before, and nods. The nurse looks at him, and then her, and nods too. Jean thinks he can see her wipe her face with her sleeve.

She’s silent when he grips at the limp wrist on the bed, holding onto it like it’s the only thing keeping him alive. He’s never talked to the girl much, since she didn’t really approve of their relationship. But it seems she’s gotten past that.

When he finally rips his gaze away from the lifeless form on the bed and looks at her, she looks away.

* * *

He can’t bear to attend the funeral because he doesn’t want to replace the memory of Eren’s final smile with an artificially-preserved one, forever still in a picture frame.

Mikasa understands.


End file.
